The Septuagenarians Are Coming!

I’m not sure how many of his followers from the ‘70s are still buying his albums, but JJ Cale’s temperament sure hasn’t changed much in all that time. The recent patronage of Eric Clapton, who first alerted us to JJ Cale in 1970, has brought his music, once again, to positive public attention.
Their award-winning collaboration, [...]

Stand By Me

A good friend of mine, named John Blahuta sang it to his wife at their wedding before all who were gathered, and although John is no Ben E. King, it was a touching moment that sticks in the memory. And I’ll bet he is not the only one to do have pulled a stunt like [...]

Ten Cent Shooters

My deep affection for pre-War Country Blues began in the early ‘70s, when I bought a compilation album called ‘Living With The Blues’. It was a French import I found in the second hand rack at 78 Records in Perth, and the album’s title song was by Brownie McGhee.  There was also the odd song [...]

Fork In The Road

I recently discovered there was a new Neil Young album called, ‘Fork In The Road’, and dialed it up for a listen. The big question, though, was which Neil Young was behind the making of this one? It’s the same question every time with Neil. By the look of the cover, I’m expecting more of [...]

Zappa Plays Zappa @ The Tivoli

I’m the only one who can appreciate the humour in this. Last time the Zappa Plays Zappa tour swept through town, in November ’07, everyone else was healthy, whilst I was down with the flu. I’d been bedridden for almost a week. I say, that I almost never made it to that show but, in [...]

The Beatles Remasters

 
To quote Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth: “Good news, everyone!”
It was announced three days ago that the original Beatles catalogue, digitally re-mastered for the first time will at long last be re-issued this September. The Beatles camp was slow to jump on the CD bandwagon back in the day and a re-mastering of their output is [...]

The Hazards Of Love

Remember the last time you were into a band you had discovered and just wanted to hear more of their stuff? When you were so impressed with their album, you investigated earlier releases while anticipating the next installment? Whoever the band was, they just had that defining something that resonated with your inner tuning fork.
That [...]

The Old As New (Phase 2)

Remember when Macca re-envisioned history with the remixed ‘Let It Be’ album? Personally, I liked ‘Let It Be …Naked’. Paul McCartney may have been right about ‘The Long And Winding Road’s quiet simplicity sans strings and syrupy choir, but it didn’t change history. Not the way we remember it. Macca copped heaps of flak from the erudite [...]

The Old As New (Phase 1)

April has arrived after a big month of updating the radioBrandon music library and copying everything over to the shiny, new, Terabyte hard drive. Well, it’s been exciting for me, anyway. Revisiting some of the older stuff during this time has been fun. Jumping from Peggy Lee’s Greatest Hits to The Dead Kennedy’s to Frank [...]